It makes me feel old when...

...I refer to "Army Street" and no one knows what I'm talking about. Boo.

whew

me:	Hey, what's with the teeny tiny font on <product>?
other engineer:	What are you talking about, it's not teeny tiny!
me:	Are you kidding? It's making my eyes hurt.
him:	Hmm...screenshot?
him:	(upon receiving screenshot) Eww, okay, that is eye-hurting. Maybe the fonts on your box are messed up.
me:	Heh, I told you! I know I'm old but I'm not that old.

We later figured out that it was his fonts that were messed up and everyone else was seeing the teeny tiny ugly fonts, so we filed a bug.

you know you're old when...

...no matter what kind of social gathering you're at, if there are ten or more people, at least one has had knee surgery. Sigh.

two down

Last week, D and I hosted Thanksgiving dinner!

I flew back from Zurich on Tuesday, arriving just before 7pm. D's parents arrived around the same time; his mom coming from Houston and his dad from Taipei. On Tuesday night, I cooked the brine for our Google-sourced Heritage turkey.

On Wednesday, I made cranberry sauce (with port and orange juice), started the homemade bread, and D made his scrumptious key lime pie.

On Thursday, we made candied sweet potatoes (with bourbon and marshmallows), sourdough sausage stuffing, and sauteed green beans. D's mom helped us roll some maki sushi, and both the turkey and ham (with brown sugar and pineapple) went into the oven for several hours. We timed things pretty well, finishing around 3:30pm.

The guests started to arrive about 15 minutes later, and they brought a ton of food too. In addition to everything that we made, I vaguely remember eating papaya salad, shrimp salad, "oily rice" (aka you fan), glass noodles with pork, bacon mashed potatoes, saltine toffee, and way too many Baked by Melissa mini-cupcakes (fresh from NYC).


Anyway, that's two down for my 35-before-35 list! I declare #5 (cook something for longer than two hours) and #20 (host Thanksgiving dinner) complete. The 17 of us even finished off all 13 lbs of turkey that night, which I think must be a first for an Asian Thanksgiving party. I also made progress on #25 (master a bread-from-scratch recipe), but although the bread was much improved from the last time, it still did not rise as much as expected. I think the kitchen was too cold during the rise phase...will have to try again over Christmas.

Next up, #28 (put up holiday decorations)! Due to allergies, we've decided on an artificial tree, so I guess we'll be shopping for one this weekend...

the official 35 before 35

Alright, I'm done with my list! I will consider it a success if I achieve 30 of these goals. (They are listed in semi-alphabetical order; I've numbered them just for future reference.)

1. attend (and possibly ride in) BYOBW
2. bike to work
3. buy dining room furniture (the poker table does not count)
4. cook live crab or lobster
5. cook something for longer than two hours
6. do an unassisted pullup
7. do NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)
8. do not buy a new car
9. drive across the country
10. eat at Alinea
11. eat fugu (puffer fish)
12. finish a photo project
13. fly first class
14. get scuba-certified
15. go houseboating
16. grow a plant for three months without killing it
17. hike Half Dome
18. hike the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim
19. host a multi-course dinner party
20. host Thanksgiving dinner
21. landscape the backyard
22. learn to knit
23. learn to put on eye makeup properly
24. make spaghetti sauce from home-grown tomatoes
25. master a bread-from-scratch recipe
26. move the rest of my stuff out of my parents' house
27. plan an awesome 35th birthday party
28. put up holiday decorations
29. run a half marathon
30. see the Northern Lights
31. see the polar bears of Churchill
32. ski a new destination (Wyoming, Montana, Idaho...?)
33. try indoor skydiving
34. visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter
35. write an Android app

Looks like I better get cracking...

eww

I realize it's just a meme (about purses, of all things), but I'm still kind of disturbed that my 16-year-old cousin's status says "I like it against the wall".

Then again, now that I think about it, people said and did much more suggestive and/or outright raunchy things throughout high school. I'm so old.

35 before 35

I was recently inspired by a "30 before 30" list made by a coworker. Unfortunately I'm already past 30, but I started writing a "35 before 35" list instead. The first ten or so were easy, but it's taking some time to put together the rest.

As a teaser, my top five were:
- run a half marathon
- get scuba-certified
- eat at Alinea
- hike the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim
- see the polar bears of Churchill

I think I may have to be less ambitious for some of the rest. Stay tuned...

ouch

me:	When I graduated, in 2000...
coworker:	2000?! Wow, I wasn't even in high school then.

once upon a time...

A friend that I've known since college recently joined my project at work. I was trying to explain our relationship to a coworker who is only a couple years out of school.

The conversation went something like this:

me:	I've known him forever. Since college. We worked together on a project sophomore year.
coworker:	<blank look>
me:	I've known him for almost 13 years.
coworker:	Wow!!

I'm guessing that was something to the effect of "Wow, you're old."

sigh

I must really be getting old when people younger than me are on their second marriages.

new old sweater

I was at City Hall yesterday getting some forms. The guy behind me overheard me telling the clerk my street address.

guy:	I live right next to you! I live on <nearby street>.
me:	Wow. Actually I have some friends that live even closer to you, on <another street>.
guy:	Cool. So, do your kids go to Fox Elementary?
me:	(inwardly) WTF!!!
me:	(outwardly, smiling politely) No, no kids.

I went home and decided it must have been my new Old Navy sweater making me look old, that made him ask that:


I'm now calling it my "old" sweater. (When I say this, the emphasis is totally different from when I say "old sweater".)

eek

I realized something yesterday...this year is the "Year of the Ox", which means my baby brother is turning 24 this year. Damn I'm old.

don't wanna grow up

There's been a outbreak of 1st birthday invites recently, and they are conspiring to make me feel old. Perhaps as a result, I had a particularly good time two weekends ago at a 30th birthday party which was designed to make us feel like kids again.

We started at LOL Parties, at Silver Creek Sportsplex in San Jose. I think between 20-30 people showed up to tackle an inflatable obstacle course, followed by a basketball game inside of a bouncy castle, and then several games of high-intensity dodgeball. My favorite was the basketball game, but all three events were fun and exhausting, and only a few people got noticeable plastic-burns. At this point I was pretty sweaty and gross, but managed to get into a Gold's Gym with a free one-day pass to shower and change. (As an aside, the guys at Gold's seem to be pretty lax about visitors, or maybe just with women.)

Next, we descended on Oakridge Mall to participate in a scavenger hunt. It was quite impressively organized, with each team getting matching sunglasses, play-doh (to build a doll representing the "birthday boy"), and a list of clues indicating certain photos/videos which we were supposed to acquire. After being mistaken for teenagers by one saleslady (woo-hoo!) and nearly being thrown out of Macy's by security (boo!), we wrapped up the hunt and headed over to Buca di Beppo's for dinner. That turned out to be an excellent choice as we were all starving, and managed to finish nearly of the food, which is pretty much unheard of at Buca's. We also had cake and prizes, and generally had a great time all around. Yay for 30th birthdays!

signs of oldness abound

I just bought a Patrick Willis jersey, which marks the first time I've ever bought a jersey belonging to a player who is younger than me. In fact, not only is he younger than me, he was born in 1985, making him the same age as my kid brother. Yeesh.

still sleepy

It's Monday morning, and I'm still a bit sleepy from having stayed at Music Tunnel until 3am on Saturday night. Yes, that was two nights ago. Sigh.

On the bright side, I finally got to try the Peking duck at Great China, and it was as yummy as advertised.

one day ski trip

There was a lot of snow in Tahoe early last week, plus the weather forecast for the weekend was clear, so I decided I wanted to go skiing. Since Friday and Saturday were already booked up, the only option was a one day trip on Sunday. I polled for interest and got four solid yesses (all girls this time, go figure), so it was a go.

I've done the day trip lots of times before, starting in my middle school ski bus days. The ideal schedule:
4:00am wake up
5:00am assemble at departure location
5:30am start driving to Tahoe
8:30am arrive at ski resort and gear up
9:00am hit the slopes
4:30pm meet up at lodge, snack & change
5:00pm start driving home
7:30pm grab dinner around Sacramento (depends on traffic)
10:30pm arrive back in Bay Area

Sounds perfectly reasonable, right? And, everything went off without a hitch. The snow was great (Northstar, mostly backside), we took our last run just as my legs were about to give out (sign of a good ski day), I ate a Euro Snack Belgian waffle for the first time (totally worth the four dollars), and we had a yummy dinner at Claim Jumper in Roseville. We got home somewhere between 10:30pm and 11:00pm, and I was in bed by midnight. The only downside is, in another sign of impending oldness, I'm really not all that awake today.

ageism

I was having a discussion with someone last week at dinner, about the unfairness of being a kid. Kids can't use certain websites until they're over 13, they can't drive until they're 16, they can't see R-rated movies without their parents until they're 18, they can't vote until they're 18, they can't drink until they're 21, they are subject to various parental notification laws, and are in fact almost totally at the mercy of their parents.

The ageism debate came up again this weekend when we were watching a West Wing episode which featured a group of kids who were lobbying for a reduced voting age. They argued that it was unfair that laws could be imposed on a group who had no voting power, and that if children were given the vote, long term issues like Social Security might be given more consideration. I totally agree, and I think I've discussed this in the past. The only possible reason to deny children suffrage is the "undue influence" argument, which ignores the fact that many adults are also easily swayed by their families, churches, colleagues, and other groups. If a kid actually takes the initiative to register to vote, why shouldn't he/she be allowed to cast a ballot?

Another age-related limit I've never understood is the drinking age. The US has the highest drinking age in the world (Most countries set it at 16 or 18.) Furthermore, I travelled extensively as a kid, and as long as I was with my parents, I was never refused service of alcohol, except in the US. I'm convinced that our ridiculously high drinking age is one of the reasons that our country's universities have such a problem with binge drinking (another one is that we treat our college students like kids, which I'll address later). If it weren't illegal for pledges to drink alcohol, would fraternities bother? Approaching the issue from another angle, it also seems ridiculous that our government thinks that someone who is mature enough to be sent to fight a war for his/her country is not mature enough to consume alcohol.

Similarly, I remember being in high school, and going with my sister to see an R-rated movie, which had no violence, very little bad language, and I think one scene where a woman's breasts were visible. Horror of horrors! Since my sister was 13, even though my mother bought the ticket for her, she wasn't allowed to see the movie unless my mother also bought a ticket and watched the movie with us. Several of our friends' parents got really good at the "buy a ticket, walk into the theatre, and leave out the back door" routine. I'm not sure if maybe the movie theatres were just trying to make an extra buck, or what, but it was a silly charade.

Moving on to a stickier subject, I also disagree with the idea of statutory rape, as it is defined in the US. Many states do not define as statutory rape, sex between a underage male and an adult female. What gives? Teenage girls are too immature to give consent, but teenage guys aren't? In California, if a 18-year-old male has sex with a 17-year-old female, it's a misdemeanor. If a 19-year-old male has sex with a 16-year-old female, it's a felony. I still vaguely remember high school, and I have a bunch of cousins who are in high school now, and I really don't think that 16-year-old girls are all that innocent. Over the holidays, I happened to see part of an IM conversation between two 14-year-old girls, and let's just say that they had extensive "relationship" vocabularies.

The driving age is another stupid one. There are plenty of adults who are horrible drivers, and there's nothing to say that kids can't be great drivers. I argue that people shouldn't be given driver's licenses until they've logged a certain number of miles. So basically, anyone who is tall enough to reach the gas pedals should be able to get a permit. Once you get a permit, you can drive with your parent or guardian, and log miles until you reach 10,000 (or 20,000, or whatever). At that point you can take a test (which should include both parallel parking and driving in reverse) and get your license. My mother used to drive a 40 mile roundtrip to take me (and eventually my sister and brother) to high school, and you can bet she wanted us to get our licenses more than we did. By the time I was fifteen and a half, I was an expert at the Marin to San Francisco commute, and my mom used to sleep in the front seat on the way there. I'm pretty sure I would have been a safer driver than a lot of the crazy people I saw out there on the road.

Finally, there is the whole issue of college students being treated as kids. When I was at MIT, a pledge died after some fraternity ritual during which he drank 16 beers. His parents subsequently sued the school. I had no sympathy for the parents. No one was physically forced to drink anything. If they thought their kid was mature enough to go off to college, then he was mature enough to make his own decisions, and if he was stupid enough to drink himself to death (with or without peer pressure), that was his problem, and their problem, for not teaching him better while he was still a kid.

The problem is that a lot of parents in American society don't want to let go. They're not satisfied with having complete control of their children until they're 18; they want to keep controlling them while they go through college, and after. Since they can't actually be around to do so, they expect schools to do the parenting for them, which is completely ridiculous. The solution is not to police college students, who should rightfully be considered adults, but for parents to realize that the more freedom that they give their children while in high school and middle school, the more their children will learn about time management, and regulating their own behavior.

It all comes down to expectations. If parents expect children not to be able to handle things, they won't. If kids expect their parents to clean up the mess every time they screw up, they will. We should just give kids a little bit more freedom, and teach them to deal with it.

Then again, I'm probably still speaking from the perspective of the kid. We'll see what I think in twenty years.

Marine World

I went to Marine World this weekend, for the first time since I was 12.

Marine World got bought by Six Flags a couple of years ago, so instead of just having shows, like Sea World, it now has lots of roller coasters. I went on Vertical Velocity, Zonga, Medusa, and a bunch of bitty rides, and I think that was about all my head could take. Must be getting old.

I've decided 21 is the best age to be. Everything's legal, and your body hasn't started falling apart yet. Too bad I didn't know it then.

doing the baby shower thing

A friend and I hosted a baby shower for a co-worker at my place last weekend. Neither of us had ever thrown a baby shower before. In fact, I'd never even thrown a bridal shower before. I felt sure that hilarity would ensue.

In retrospect, things didn't turn out too badly. The games we picked were simple but fun (I think the guests enjoyed the baby food taste test the most) and the decorations, prizes and favors were a hit, especially with the two under-5 guests. I also got a chance to make my favorite dessert, the Double Chocolate Mousse Torte (see Epicurious for details) and eat finger jello. Mmm...red jello.

Afterwards, I managed to clean up, eat, shower, and get myself to the city for a 8pm housewarming party (well, I was an hour or two late). I got there just in time for vodka shots and a fresh batch of lemon cookies.

old and ignorant, and creaky too

I've been having some issues with my right hip during yoga. It doesn't hurt when I'm just walking around, or even during basketball, but whenever I do a hard stretch like a right side split I'll notice. I was afraid I had a stress fracture or something, because the last time I had persistent pain it turned out I had a stress fracture in my left foot (although that healed by itself). Anyway, my doctor thinks I have early arthritis in my hip. Ugh. She thinks all that gymnastics as a kid might have contributed, because gym inflicts a lot of trauma on your joints (well duh). Now they tell me. I guess the 4-year-old me wouldn't have known what arthritis was anyway.